Airlean Tales S2E23: Florenhost (1)

The morning of Florenhost opened with peals of laughing bells, lyres, and flutes. The light of the Kardeia blazed over Sundial Plaza, which was awash with bouquets of shells and coral.

Halcyon tilted his face against the morning light, relishing the ever-present scent of the sea, breezy with a hint of salt. The plentiful water mana coiled in him, a boundless energy that bubbled under his skin, begging to be freed.

There was another reason for his high spirits, he knew; that extra buoyant spring in his step, the perpetual upward tilt of his mouth that was nearly giddy.

I shall accompany you if I am able.

Halcyon caught sight of a couple exchanging shell wreaths, and his smile broadened. He’d never been one for the arts, his rough hands unsuited for the fine, deft work of brushes or needles or clay, but today he was determined. He’d make a wreath, no matter how crude and flawed, and set it on her brow. Maybe she’d laugh at him, but it couldn’t be helped. Seeing those cold, silent ashes of what had once been the bustling Leventis Dominion, followed by the whirlwind of fighting the scarecrows with his life on the line—it reminded him of the fragility of life, the urgent need to reach for Karis before it was too late.

She’d shied away a few times. Enough for him to doubt. But either he was truly delusional, or she was beginning to respond—little smiles and glances, pretty blushes. He had to culminate it into something, he knew. At some point, he had to gather every scrap of courage and ask.

She’ll be repulsed. The old thoughts rose to haunt him, steady as clockwork, disguised as voices of his dead brothers and sisters, whispers of tavern patrons and underground passersby. Filth, reject, fraud. She’ll think your attentions disgusting. She’ll leave you. You’ll lose it all.

He had to close his eyes to push those thoughts away. They’d kept him silent for years.

No longer.

Halcyon pulled up to the nearest merchant. She sat cross-legged on a mat, surrounded by linen sacks brimming with shells and dried coral. String passed deftly between her fingers as she wove a comely wreath.

“Shells for a wreath, please,” Halcyon said in Atlantean.

The merchant looked up—a rosy-cheeked, bright-eyed girl with plaits and a gap tooth—and eyed him knowingly. “Will that be blue or pink accent shells, mister?”

His cheeks began to warm. “Pink.”

“Ooh, a lucky lover!” She beamed as her freckled hands plucked a linen sack. “How long has it been?”

Now his ears were on fire. “Uh, nothing yet. Today’s the day I ask.”

She gasped and swiftly slid a few ribbons into the sack. “Gracious, how wonderful! Then you’ll be wanting these. Twine or wire?”

“Wire. Silver if you can.”

“Very good. What are your odds, do you reckon?”

His eyes passed over a small charm necklace. A badge was engraved with her name: Callie. “Don’t know,” he said absently. “Good enough, I hope.”

She passed the linen sack to him and smiled. There was something off about it. “Oh, mister, I think your odds are much better than that.”

“Would be nice, but I won’t count on it.” He glanced down to fetch his coinpurse. “How much for the materials?”

Callie didn’t respond. Frowning, he raised his head.

She was gone. There was no mat, no wares. Yet the linen sack of shells and string still weighed down his hand, the only sign that the encounter had not been his imagination.

Sethis knew that Karis was distracted.

From the moment she joined him and Lilian at the entrance of the Marketway, her mind was distant, occupied elsewhere. She only heard about half the words that were spoken, and whenever a flash of ocean blue caught her eye, she stared so openly that Sethis could barely withhold a chuckle.

“Karis?”

She jerked. “Hm? Yes? Yes.”

He wanted to laugh at the guilt scrawled over her face. “Go on,” he said.

“What?”

“Find Lord Halcyon. Go to him and enjoy yourself.”

“I don’t—” But then she stopped, looking conflicted. “You’re quite sure?”

This time, he did laugh. “Yes, I’m sure. You do remember that your duties are no longer bound to me?”

She stared longingly in the distance for another moment, then quickly shook her head. “No. No, I shouldn’t.”

“I think you should.”

Her teeth caught on her lower lip. “I heard a warning, Sethis, from one of the Keepers. I cannot disregard it completely.”

“Warning?” said Lilian, lifting a brow. “The Karis Caelute I’ve heard of wouldn’t give one fig for warnings. I thought she was all about making her own future.”

“In case you haven’t heard, Forsythe,” Karis snapped, “the clairvoyance of a Keeper is considered a valid supernatural ability. The future they see is unavoidable.”

“And you think of all the thousand important problems of the world, they chose to pry into your love life?”

“One of them is so contrary that, yes, I do believe he would look for it just to spite me!”

“Hells, to have the inflated view you have of yourself.”

Karis’s eyes flashed. “Go boil your head, Forsythe.”

“Go kick a boulder, Caelute.”

“Go jump in the Atlas Sea.”

“Go jump off the Noadic—”

“Alright, alright,” said Sethis, pained. “The choice is yours, Karis, of course. I suppose I would only ask—would you truly regret nothing, if this night were to pass without a moment of Lord Halcyon’s company?”

She hesitated visibly, teeth catching on her lower lip. “My regrets would be keener were such company to result in his coffin,” she said baldly. “Does it not concern you, as prince, that my actions could lead to the loss of the First Hunter?”

“It concerns me as your friend that this choice seems to be upsetting you,” Sethis replied gently. “Consider me a skeptic, but I think if the Keepers gave you this prophecy free of charge, then the value of it is as much as you paid. True clairvoyance must be paid with blood.”

Karis looked torn, but held her silence.

“I see,” said Sethis with a hint of disappointment, and they walked on.

Yet Karis lingered. She trailed behind, her eyes searching the crowds for that familiar swoop of an ocean blue cape or the unruly shock of dark hair.

“Caelute,” Lilian began impatiently, no doubt seconds from starting another confrontation, when—

“Pardon, Your Highness,” came Halcyon’s voice, “but could I steal Karis for a moment?”

Karis’s spine went ramrod straight and her fingers laced together—rare symptoms of nerves from the Second Hunter, and ones that had Sethis choking back another chuckle. Halcyon loomed at her shoulder with a faintly possessive air, his shrouded figure not unlike the grim reaper. Did he realize how conspicuous and alarming he appeared? Most likely not.

“With Lilian arrived,” Sethis said, “I am no longer Karis’s liege. She is the sole master of her schedule.”

Karis shot him the briefest look of cutting betrayal, which he only answered with a knowing grin. She promptly tempered her expression when Halcyon turned to her.

“Karis,” he said, extending his hand. “May I?”

She stared very hard at his hand. Pink was filtering into her cheeks. “May—may you what?”

“Steal you away.”

Her breath hitched at his brazenness, and Sethis thought he saw Lilian cringe. But Halcyon’s attention remained solely on Karis.

Her eyes flickered up to meet him. “It’s not…quite stealing, if I go willingly,” she said hesitantly.

Sethis felt a keen urge to join his cousin in cringing. Now they were flirting openly. He was tempted to make himself scarce.

Halcyon reached down and took her hand, studying her for any sign of disquiet.

Karis bit her lip, a thousand thoughts flickering like moonbeams over her face.

Then slowly, her fingers closed over his.

Halcyon smiled in a way that nobody would expect from the First Hunter: bright, warm, bordering on vulnerable. He promptly pulled her from the crowds, and they disappeared around the corner.

The uncomfortable pause was broken by Lilian’s snort. “All her talk, and away she goes like a lamb to the slaughter. Asters, Caelute has it bad.”

“Just Caelute?” Sethis replied.

“I don’t profess to know anything about the First Hunter. His face could be carved out of stone, for how little it moves.”

“Ah, cousin,” Sethis said sagely. “His thoughts are not in how his face moves, but where he looks.”

She frowned. “Well, good for them both, I suppose. Any more pining and Caelute would have filled a forest.”

He could not help but laugh at that. How he had missed the wit of his cousin.

The arranged meeting place with Senator Xiph was further down the Marketway, in front of a statue garden where citizens had dressed the marble sculptures with wreaths of multicolored shells. She was alone again—vibrant as ever with that bright, sharp smile and permanent bounce in her step that Sethis was beginning to grow somewhat fond of, hands clasped behind her back.

Rather than relief, Sethis felt a sharp twist in his gut. This had all the makings of an innocuous outing, but with one key difference: he would be spending the entire evening attempting to extract information from Xiph, even if it meant abusing the tiniest bit of sway he had.

He instinctively glanced at Lilian, who only raised an eyebrow in response. She started it.

He pressed his lips together and turned back to Xiph, who was approaching with a confident swagger.

“Hey there, pretty boy.” Her eyes flickered briefly over Lilian. “Got a new guard, I see. What, the pink witch lady didn’t cut it?”

He frowned. “Karis has always been the Second Hunter of Airlea, and that is where her duty lies,” he said tactfully. “The one standing here now is Lilian Forsythe, Captain of the Royal Guard.”

Xiph’s brows shot upward. “Huh. So where’s your liege hiding on this fine day of Florenhost, then?”

Lilian revealed nothing on her face, but Sethis could feel her confusion. But there was no time to explain—especially when Xiph breezed on as if she hadn’t asked anything at all.

“Well, since he keeps sending you in his stead, I guess there’s nothing for it.” She grinned. “I’ll just have to make sure you have a wonderful time.”

As usual, she caught him off guard with her boldness, leaving him defenseless. He took a moment to regain his composure. “Why do you stand alone? Where is your personal guard?”

“I’m not alone.” Her teeth flashed again. “A cute boy asked me to attend the festival with him. And I got a gift for him in return.”

He scarcely had time to blush before Xiph drew out whatever she was hiding behind her back. Instinctively, Lilian’s sword grated as she pulled it an inch out of its sheath. But then she stopped.

For the object in Xiph’s hands was only a beautiful wreath, cream-colored shells gathered into a tidy disk, spotted with vibrant blue pieces of coral.

“It’s a Florenhost wreath,” Xiph said with an unbothered smile. “People make these and exchange them as a sign of friendship. They’ll wear them for the day, then hang them on their doors at night. Protects the house from bad luck.”

“Oh,” Sethis said, charmed. “And that one is…”

“Yes, I made it for you.”

That one statement should not have warmed his bones like mulled cider, but it did. It had been a long time since someone had gifted him something made with their own hands—even if this was a sign of courtesy, not affection.

Xiph made a little gesture that he didn’t understand.

“Pardon?” Sethis said.

She showed her teeth. “Lean down. I can’t put this on your head without my arms hurting, you beanpole.”

“Ah.” Blushing, he obediently dipped his head. She leaned in, and he caught the light, refreshing scent of lilypads and citrus as she carefully rested the wreath on his head. The weight of it prickled at his scalp, but not enough to be unpleasant.

Xiph stepped back with a satisfied look. “Not bad. You’d make for a handsome merprince.”

“What of a handsome human prince?” Sethis said.

Xiph startled and gaped at him. She fumbled for a second before she recovered. “I mean—I do call you a pretty boy, don’t I? And, and now you have a pretty wreath to match.”

That made him pause. She always carried herself with such confidence and audacity, like she was impervious to the words and actions of others—but perhaps that only covered a more vulnerable heart. Feeling the guilt stirring once more, Sethis consciously stepped back, showing an easy smile to reassure her.

“Allow me to make you a wreath,” he said, “to return the favor.”

This only unbalanced Xiph further. The surprise that crossed her face was genuine. “That’s nice of you, but completely unnecessary.”

“Is this day not for making wreaths and showing appreciation?” He glanced at her unadorned hair. “And you’ve no wreath yet.”

Inexplicably, her cheeks reddened. “Simon will make me one. No need to fret.”

“Would it discomfit you were I to give you one?”

“No!” she said immediately. “I mean, did I say that? I don’t think I said that. But you’re from Airlea. You’re not obligated.”

“No gift is obligated. Is that not what gives it meaning?”

She reddened further, then sighed. “You always have the perfect answer, don’t you, pretty boy? Alright, then.” She tipped her chin. “Make me a crown worthy of all the Ancients and their descendants.”

He only laughed. “That turned into quite a tall order.”

She grinned back. “No taller than yourself, beanpole man.” She turned on her heel. “Let’s find you some shells.”

There were three known remnants of Old Magick within Atlantis: abyssal nature, such as the marine trenches and their corrupted spawn; blood magic, through which existed bloodbinding and the ashen epitaphs for the Mnemonic Pool; and lastly, mythical creatures like the Leviathan, the Pegasus…and the Fates.

The Fates were the most mysterious, to be sure. There were whispers more than fact of a spirit with three faces, or perhaps three spirits—one young, one of middling age, and the last elderly. Together they spun and measured and cut the thread that wove destiny. Or so went the legends, which Halcyon never really believed.

But the merchant girl who’d sold him seashells before mysteriously vanishing—that was a supernatural omen that had him thinking twice. Had she been a leftover mirage of Old Magick? Or simply some forgetful first-time purveyor?

Try as he might to think deeper on the issue, Halcyon could not bring himself to care. Because he was holding Karis’s hand.

Such a small thing, a silly thing, yet it made him buoyant, exhilarated. A burst of courage had him twine his fingers with hers. Her digits were slender and refined and fit his perfectly. And he felt his pulse stop momentarily when she gave a little answering squeeze of his hand.

How was it possible for a tiny gesture to fill him with so much joy?

Sense caught up to him. As the crowds thinned, he reluctantly released her. He immediately felt the loss of touch, but Karis did not seem to notice as she looked around the Sundial Plaza curiously.

“The festive air reminds me of the Mythaven night market,” she said. “Though there doesn’t seem to be much in refreshment.”

“People are saving room for the rich feasting tonight,” Halcyon said. “After the mistlore showing, everyone will either attend or host a banquet. The drinking and revelry will go on all night.”

“Mistlore,” Karis echoed. “A kind of evening entertainment?”

He wouldn’t spoil the surprise. “Of a sort. It takes place at sundown.”

She looked upward. “I heard the Kardeia, not the sun, dictates most of the citadel’s ambient light. How does it brighten in the mornings and dim in the evenings?”

“I don’t know the specifics, but I’d assume…since the Kardeia was once the body of a living creature, maybe some natural instincts persisted.”

“Circadian cycles?”

He shrugged. “It’s a guess, mostly.”

Karis hummed assent as she continued to survey the plaza, noting the circles of Atlanteans sitting on the ground, chatting as they wove shell wreaths. She gestured politely. “Is this like the wreath-weaving of the Petal Waltz?”

Halcyon knew little of the Airlean national spring holiday, save that flowers were everywhere, bubbling in every corner of the city in a garish flood. “Maybe,” he said.

His heart kicked into a canter as he steeled himself for the next moment.

“Wreaths of the Florenhost show affection and appreciation,” he said. “They mean that—that the recipient is precious to the giver.”

And before he lost his nerve, he swiftly unveiled his wreath, extending it to her with both hands.

It was altogether better than he’d expected, but worse than he’d hoped: simple, almost militaristic, a far cry from the extravagant wreaths sold by skilled artisans. Thin silver wire arced in an elegant, low tiara, studded with tiny pink scallops and conches. A few trails of frosted faux pearls dangled on silken thread, meant to braid into the hair with a dewlike sparkle.

Halcyon had been uncertain of his skill and decided that a simpler design was safer, but now it looked scrawny and lacking. He stifled a grimace as Karis looked at the wreath.

“Oh,” she said, the sound impossibly soft. Her hand reached out, then stopped over it, as if she was afraid to touch it. “This is…a sample?”

“I, I made it.” He swallowed. “For you.”

The look in her eyes was indescribable. Karis had made a name for herself as the Second Hunter with her ice-cold composure no matter the circumstance, but this moment, her face was a colorful fresco of raw emotion—surprise, conflict, reserved joy. The light in her gaze made his hope soar.

She traced a finger over the arc of the silver wire, but Halcyon’s hand stopped hers. “Before you put it on,” he said hesitantly, “I should tell you something.”

She looked at him, waiting.

“Pink shells indicate…romantic interest.” He glanced away, oddly bashful. “It seems like something you should know. Before you accept it.”

“Oh,” she said quietly. “Halcyon, I…”

Alarm shot through him. Had she ever called him Halcyon? Not Hal, not Yuden, but Halcyon?

Very rarely, and that boded ill.

He waited for Karis to finish, but agonizingly, she did not. She only blinked at him with those beautiful, mesmerizing crimson eyes. His nerves began to curdle.

“It’s not—you don’t have to accept it,” he said, starting to pull the wreath away. Gods, he really was a fool, wasn’t he? She knew unimaginable finery, and here he was with some glorified underwater twigs. “I didn’t mean…you shouldn’t…”

Karis’s face pinched like she was in pain, and suddenly, her fingers clamped on his wrist. “No,” she said, hushed. “I, I would like it. Please.”

He stared at her, aghast, certain he had misread her. Perhaps she pitied him?

“Please,” she repeated. Firmly, this time.

The words stolen from him, he gingerly lifted the wreath and set it on her brow. It glittered, muted enough to highlight her beauty rather than overcome it. She looked like a queen.

His queen.

Mouth suddenly dry, he looked away. “Sorry,” he said awkwardly. “I’m not much of a craftsman.”

Karis shook her head. “I prefer it this way. A minimal tiara better suits my face shape.” At his skeptical look, she smiled. “It’s true. A tall crown would make my head look freakishly large.”

“I doubt that.”

“You need not doubt what I know for certain.” She looped her arm easily through his, as if accompanying him to a fine gala. Her sudden closeness unbalanced him. “It’s beautiful, Hal. Truly. I’m grateful for your work.”

The urge to pull her in and kiss her shocked him with its intensity. He wet his lips as he turned his head, resisting. He’d only end up frightening her. He needed to be careful.

As Halcyon led Karis away from the square, his restless thoughts surfaced again. What if that disappearing merchant girl had not been absent-minded, or an ill-humored prankster, but one of the Fates?

All Old Magick came with a cost. And Halcyon could not shake the foreboding feeling that if Karis came to him, he would just as quickly lose her.

The shell sellers along the Marketway all seemed to recognize Xiph. Sethis noted how they shrank back slightly and lowered their eyes, afraid to meet her gaze. He wondered at it; though her title was the Warmonger, Xiph hardly seemed to be violent or villainous. Perhaps the bloodstained history of her family alone had estranged her from the public.

He did not know why, but the thought bothered him.

Xiph strode right up to the nearest merchant, and with her hands on her hips, leaned over, not unlike an underground thug shaking down a hapless civilian.

“Your finest shells,” she said clearly.

Surprisingly, this particular merchant did not cow. He did look slightly pale as he reached for a linen sack of shells.

“Blue or pink, my lady?”

She jerked her chin at Sethis. He glanced over two fat, intricate sample wreaths hanging over the edge of the booth. One of the wreaths was accented with shells painted a vibrant pacific blue; the other, accents of soft lily pink and muted grey-green sprigs.

He eyed Xiph, then turned back to the merchant.

“Pink,” he said. “I think it suits her more, don’t you?”

The merchant glanced at Xiph incredulously, and the sprightly senator, ordinarily so unflappable, turned beet red.

“Nope, no, he meant blue,” she said hurriedly. “Get us blue, yep.”

Sethis bit back his curiosity until he paid for the shells and they had safely retreated down the Marketway. Xiph was still red.

“Pink is for lovers, pretty boy,” she said. “Paramours. Amorous sweethearts.”

“Ah.” He flushed. “I see.”

She coughed and looked away. “I forgot—you didn’t know. You just thought the colors matched well.”

She looked tense. “Has a boy ever given you a pink wreath?” he questioned, wishing to dispel the awkwardness.

She laughed, but the sound wavered. “Oh, um, once.”

Sethis was suddenly stricken by the image of a young, scrawny Halcyon Yuden bashfully passing a pink wreath to her.

“He hid tacks in the wreath,” Xiph continued wryly, “then shoved it on my head. Opened gashes all along my temple and scalp. I’ll tell ya, it’s not too pleasant to have your eyes full of your own blood.”

Any vague notion of jealousy vanished swiftly. Sethis’s jaw fell open in bitter horror. “A—what?”

Xiph shrugged. “The cruelty of youth.”

Horror began to churn into rage. “Who would dare commit such an offense?” Certainly not Halcyon Yuden.

“It was just a few scratches, pretty boy. Nothing to write home about.”

“It’s the meaning behind such a gesture,” he snapped. “To take something precious, meant to be cherished, and—and turn it into a weapon!” The longer he thought on it, the worse it became. Xiph was martially capable. No one could have forced a wreath upon her head. Which meant that some ruthless blackguard had taken her aside, pretended his feelings were true, and when her guard was lowered…

He was infuriated just thinking about it.

Xiph was watching him with a very strange look. “It’s alright, you know,” she said softly. “He taught me a very important lesson.”

“Which was?” Surely nothing could justify such cruelty.

She was silent for a long moment, still watching. Then she shrugged, her typical smile returning to lift her features.

“To be more careful of my personal security as a senator,” she said blithely.

His jaw set. “Such things should have never been done to you,” he said. “But as they have…I swear to you that I will do my best to make amends.”

“Make amends for what? You did nothing wrong.”

He held up the bag of shells, his grimace shifting into a smile.

“Perhaps we can replace that memory,” he said, “with a kinder one.”

Atlantis beaded below Karis like a box of jewelry as the afternoon dimmed to a warm twilight. Halcyon dropped down on edge of the roof and swung his feet over, letting them dangle precariously over the yawning city below. He yanked off his mask, looking relieved.

Karis tried not to stare at his face. It really was disturbingly handsome.

“Sit,” Halcyon said, patting the space next to him. “The mistlore will start soon.”

It was late for regret, far too late. Still, Karis knew that she should have turned him away. She should have disappeared into the crowd. She should not have opened her heart to that distracting curve of his mouth, the beguiling warmth in his eyes.

But her hand had raised on its own. Closed over his.

Allowed him to grip her fingers and spirit her away to a moment that should have stayed in her dreams.

Stifling a sigh at her own self-indulgence and incompetence, she seated herself next to Halcyon. She took childish satisfaction in the way he startled, no doubt surprised that she chose to sit close, her thigh lightly touching his, rather than maintain a proper distance. In Karis’s mind, she had already shattered propriety into a thousand irrecoverable pieces. Now she might as well enjoy it.

She glanced around. They’d fired their windsoles to reach this particular perch—the tower of Vindikis, Halcyon said, once a prison tower that isolated particularly troublesome criminals. Now it stood abandoned, the eerie silence of the grounds bearing an uncanny resemblance to the ashes of the Leventis Dominion.

“Nobody comes here,” Halcyon said. “Well, they didn’t, at least.”

“Why?” Karis asked. “Do they believe it haunted?”

He shrugged. “A little, but Atlanteans also aren’t as interested in vantage points as Airleans. Did you see how nobody wears windsoles?”

Come to think of it, she hadn’t noticed. “I suppose they wouldn’t be much use in the ocean.”

He nodded. Windsoles operated from ambient wind mana that was plentiful everywhere—except underwater.

“When Atlanteans want a good view, they go to the Mistlore Vantage by the Kardeia,” he said. “It’s always packed there.”

“Hence why you looked for a different perch?”

Another nod. “Found this place when I was…nine? Ten?”

“Nine!” A sudden thought disturbed her. “You had no windsoles.”

Halcyon was silent. Karis watched him closely.

“I didn’t think it’d matter,” he eventually said. “Even if I ended up falling.”

Her heart plunged downward. She gripped his arm, hard, fingers digging into him like a vice. “You have windsoles now.”

His hand pressed over hers, encasing it with warmth. “I have more than windsoles,” he murmured.

She faltered, trapped under his darkening gaze. Then he blinked, and whatever she had seen vanished. He pulled back and kicked a leg idly in the air.

“Nana gave me a fight,” he explained. “A family.”

Nana. His godmother. A former Hunter who had plucked him from the streets and, whether intentionally or not, ushered him to greatness.

“You don’t speak of her much,” Karis noted.

He was quiet for a moment. “I thought it’d get easier, with time. But it never seems to.”

“For a wound to heal, it must first be cleansed.”

Halcyon didn’t speak. Nali Yuden had died peacefully, of old age—a rare achievement in their field. But her passing still would have wounded him, rid him of his only surviving family.

When the moment stretched on, Karis decided to relieve him. “Well, no need to tell me. I am merely being nosy, I suppose.”

“No,” Halcyon said. “You’re right. I should tell someone.”

He tried to start several times. Karis could tell from the way he opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened, then closed, a conflicted wince scrawling over his face. She thought she understood, at least a little. Driven to be the perfect and infallible Hunter that the country needed, she had donned the armor of an invincible, steely woman—and over time, that facade had burned into her skin. Now she feared removing it, or it would tear her apart, the raw flesh beneath vulnerable from disuse.

“Hal,” she said quietly, about to tell him, It’s alright, forget it.

“I was a rat on the streets,” Halcyon said suddenly. She fell silent, surprised, and watched his fingers turn white on the edge of the roof. “Some filthy, terrified kid who was barely scraping by after fleeing from Atlantis. I caught the attention of the barkeep at a tavern. He had me scramble. A dime every ten games.”

“Scramble?” Karis echoed.

“Deal cards. When it’s a gambling game, the players employ a neutral party who handles the shuffle and the deals. It prevents cheating.”

“That is shockingly fair.”

He chuckled bitterly. “The barkeep lets players rig it. For a price.”

Karis paused. “Oh.”

“They approach him ahead of time and pay him a good fee, and he gets the scramblers to rig the shuffle for them.”

“Ah. Doesn’t quite prevent cheating, then.”

His lips quirked. “My hands were good, but someone’s eyes were better. Someone dangerous. They accused the table of foul play. The barkeep wanted the coin but not the trouble, so he denied knowing anything, set the blame on me.”

“A child!”

He shrugged. “Most of the youth steal and cheat around there. It doesn’t take a stretch of the imagination.”

Karis scowled. “Then you were dragged out and beaten.”

“I clawed and thrashed, but it didn’t matter. I should have died that day.” His gaze was distant, no doubt recalling the insurmountable pain, the rage, the helplessness. “But a passerby interfered.”

“Nali Yuden?”

“Yes.” He chuckled. “Maybe ‘passerby’ is a generous way of putting it. I’d picked her pockets. Stole a locket that had been from her deceased husband. She tracked me down because she wanted it back.”

“You—pardon?” If anyone had stolen a memento of her father, Karis would have eviscerated that man on the spot.

That made Halcyon laugh. “Exactly. I think she had a mind to tan my hide. Until she saw that someone had already beaten her to it.”

“More than that. She adopted you. Quite a turnaround.”

His smile faded. “It was.”

“How did it happen?”

He was quiet for such a long moment that she wondered if she’d scared him. But when she looked at him, she only found smug amusement written over his face.

“As a very skilled storyteller once told me,” he said slowly, “a tale for another time.”

“Hal. You wouldn’t.”

There was a glitter of mirth in his eye. “Favors owed, favors paid.”

She should have realized that her cheekiness would come back to bite her. “Fine, then, a bargain,” Karis said quickly. “I shall finish my story and you shall finish yours.”

He inclined his head with a knowing grin. “Fair enough. Why don’t we start with yours?”

“Now, now, you were hitting your stride. It would be rude for me to interrupt.”

His grin widened. He chuckled, then took a moment to gather his thoughts.

“It must have been a humorous sight,” he said. “A squat, elderly woman picking her way down a shadowed alley with a weathered cane, flanked by towering thugs.”

Karis could see his words in her mind’s eye, as clearly as a scene laid before her. The thugs stepped back as a diminutive woman hobbled by, out of surprise and confusion more than anything else. She reached the end of the alley, where a youth lay crumpled against a barred gate, shattered arm cradled around his broken ribs.

“Goodness,” she said, her Yueraian accent thick and weighty, and leaned her cane against the mildew-encrusted brick wall. “That’s no way to treat a child.”

The leader of the thugs, the cruel and brutish Blackmane, towered over her with his salt-flecked mess of hair and one gouged eye. “Shoulda walked past while you still had the chance, granny. Though you look long overdue for death anyway.”

“My eyesight might be failing me,” said the aged woman, “but not enough to overlook an injustice.”

One of Blackmane’s men roared in laughter. “Shit, we’re quakin’ in our boots. What are ya gonna do, granny, shank us with your knitting needle?”

“Quiet,” Blackmane ordered. “Or are your wits so dull that you don’t know the aura of a Hunter?”

That tempered their mockery, but not their courage. Knives were drawn, stances were dropped, smuggled amulets of raw mana quartz were taken out of back pockets.

Nali Yuden regarded them calmly. “A little street shrimp is not worth fighting over.”

“It’ll teach you to meddle in our business,” Blackmane said, and he nodded at his men.

The gang shuffled forward one step. Then, suddenly, like puppets with their strings cut, they all fell. Their bodies hit the cobblestone in a rain of dull, hollow thuds.

They lay there silent and unmoving.

Nali sighed as she moved forward. It was good fortune that none of these thugs were sensitive to manacraft. No one had noticed her Forming the air while they chattered on. She’d been able to knock them right on the skulls without much trouble.

Thin slats of moonlight painted the alley in silver, revealing her target. The shriveled form of a boy lay at her feet, shrouded in a ragged, filthy cloak. Beneath the mass of dark hair, she caught a glimpse of sharp features, keen almond-shaped eyes, and bronze skin.

A Yueraian boy.

Nali inhaled softly, and the boy stirred at the sound. The hand that wasn’t broken scrabbled to his ankle, where he’d undoubtedly stowed a dagger or a sharp stone. His head sluggishly raised, and his mop of hair fell aside.

Revealing eyes as blue as the sea.

Oh, Renhu, she mused. Are you telling me something?

Nali carefully stooped down, mindful of her tired back as she examined the boy for injuries. He was certainly beat up—bent and broken limbs, swollen cheek, bruises mottled all over the patches of arms and legs not hidden by his filthy cloak. She was surprised he was still conscious. His pain tolerance was absurdly high for a gangly youth just beginning to spurt, maybe thirteen or fourteen.

Still, in a rare stroke of luck for the underworld, he did not seem close to death. His head had been spared most of the trauma and there was little blood. But a physician would have to make the final judgment.

Nali reached out. The boy’s hand snapped forward, trying to carve a sharp stone across her cheek, but it was easy enough to catch his wrist. He was too badly injured to put up much of a fight.

“Sit still,” she said. “You’ll break something. Well, something more.”

“Don’t touch me,” the boy rasped.

“You wanna die here, duckling? Cold and wet and moldy in this stinky alley?”

He gave no reply. Only sullen silence.

Nali matched his reticence as she painstakingly crouched and shifted the boy onto her back. He gave a pitiful whine whenever she jostled him, but surprisingly, put up no resistance. He was desperate indeed, then. Enough to trust his fate to the whims of a total stranger.

As Nali slowly hobbled out of the alley, the boy finally spoke. “You killed ‘m,” he said.

It took no time for her to understand what he was referring to. “Can’t win a drawn-out fight against a bunch of youngsters.”

“Blackmane said you was a Hunter. Hunters ain’t supposed to kill nobody.”

“Well, duckling, a good thing I am no longer a Hunter.”

“You gon kill me too?”

“Maybe if you keep yapping.” She didn’t feel like explaining that those thugs weren’t actually dead.

Nali laboriously shuffled over the wet, rank cobblestone. The youth slouched over her back hissed with every step. Good, he was still feeling pain. He was likely to live.

“Where you takin’ me?” mumbled the youth.

“To get help, child. Spirits know you need it.”

“Can’t help me. Nobody can.”

Nali sighed. “I left behind a good cane for this.”

“Hurts like hell. ’M gonna die.”

“You have a name, duckling, or only complaints?”

He was silent for a moment. Then: “Don’t have one.”

“A name, you mean, because there’s plenty complaints.”

“Fine, then,” he growled. “They call me Crow at the tav. Or the barkeep did. Until he had me dragged out and tanned to keep his own hide.”

Nali clicked her tongue. “Crow. That’s no good name for a strapping young man.”

The boy said nothing.

“If you wish to be a bird so badly, I will call you Halcyon.”

The boy tensed. “Not that.”

“Why not? Good name. Good bird. Nests on the sea, tames the waves to lay its eggs.”

“It’s Atlantean.”

“It’s a good name. Better than Crow. Give me another one if you don’t like it.”

The boy fell into sullen silence again, and Nali hobbled on carefully. The festering streets of the city’s underbelly soon faded into the colorful, uneven brick of midtown. The Guild wasn’t far, but on Nali’s old legs and without her cane, an age seemed to pass before she reached its familiar double doors.

She pushed through the open room and into the medical wing, where the head physician, a round woman named Meek, was lounging in an empty infirmary bed with her feet kicked up and her nose in a book. Meek looked up at the sound of footfalls, and upon seeing Nali, groaned aloud.

“Oh no,” she said.

Nali grinned. “Oh yes.”

Meek snapped her book shut and pulled herself to her feet. “Nali,” she said, rubbing at her eyes, “who is it now?”

“His name is Halcyon,” Nali said practically. “He needs your help.”

“Ugh, that smell—he a slummer? Nali, you can’t just drag in anybody from the street.”

Nali peered over Meek’s shoulder into the empty infirmary. “You don’t look very busy.”

“That’s none of your business.”

Nali pushed past Meek and deposited the boy on the nearest bed. He made a strangled noise of pain. Oh, still conscious. He was a tough one.

“Well, you can use the practice,” she said, clapping a hand on Meek’s shoulder. “Mind don’t stay sharp unless you use it.”

Meek only held out her hand. Nali grumbled as she thumbed out eight gildings and slapped them into the physician’s open palm.

“Youngsters nowadays. Don’t do anything outside of coin.”

“Be thankful it’s only eight gildings,” Meek warned. “Regen’s expensive and this boy will need it to use his arm again.”

Nali only grunted and hobbled out of the room. She pulled two chairs together, spread out her weathered cloak, and sprawled over the makeshift bed. A night of fitful rest passed before Meek woke her at dawn, shaking her roughly by the shoulder.

“The boy wants to see you,” Meek said.

“Oh, he’s summoning people now, is he?” Nali grumbled.

“You’re the one who carted him in, Nali. I didn’t make you.”

Nali chose not to reply to that.

She found the boy sitting up already, loathe to lie down even when in pain. His ratty clothing still smelled like the faint sewage attributed to the underworld, but Meek had washed the dirt from his face, revealing a proud face and sharp eyes, his tense frown far too bitter for his youth.

“What do I owe you?” Halcyon said.

Nali crooked a brow. “Come again?”

He nervously rubbed a hand over the sling binding his arm. “Nobody does nothin’ for free.”

“Apparently, a word of gratitude is too much to ask for,” Nali groused.

His eyes narrowed. “Gratitude?”

“Yes, duckling, a simple ‘thank you’ shall suffice.”

He looked unmoved, the glint in his gaze only one of suspicion. “I don’t hold debts. People like to use ‘em in ways I don’t like. So tell me how to pay you back.”

Nali sighed. “Fine. There’s a pot of rice at my house that’s about to mold. Once you’ve healed, come eat it up.”

That shocked him. He seemed a withdrawn boy, but even he gawked openly at her, eyes wide as boiled eggs. “What?” he stuttered. “Why?”

“I don’t like to waste food,” Nali said.

“But that’s free food.” He gritted his teeth. “That’s another debt.”

“Then do me another favor. Wash up and go to school. It’ll keep you from robbing another poor old lady.”

“I don’t got a bath.”

“I do.”

“Or clothes. Or a place to stay.”

“I’ve got all that too.”

His face reddened. “Then I’ll keep owin’ you. One of them debts I’ll never repay.”

“If you can’t repay me, duckling,” Nali said, “then the answer is simple. Once you’re all big and you don’t need clothes or rice anymore, you find somebody else who does. And you pay them instead.”

Handicrafts were apparently not Sethis’s strong suit.

On the spires of the Mistlore Vantage, a terraced tower with upper floors reserved for senators, Sethis stared hopelessly at the clumsy, garbled loop of twine in his fingers. Uneven lengths of cord choked out bunches of haphazard shells. So much for a wreath. After all of his talk, he had failed quite spectacularly.

Reclined in a plush chaise next to him, Xiph was kicking her feet with an idle grin. Sethis could only sigh.

“I know,” he said. “Truly a hideous showing.”

“Aw, no, pretty boy,” she said. “I think it’s really cute that you’re trying. It’s the thought that counts.”

“A kind platitude, but I’m quite certain that in this case, results matter more.” Sethis sighed and dangled the offending object. “Anyone who sees this will wonder why you bear rubbish on your head.”

Before he could blink, she snatched the wreath from his grasp and laid it on her head. “I like it,” she said plainly. “It’s not rubbish.”

He felt the blush coming. “Then you may wish to rinse out your eyes, Senator.”

“I only see a charming wreath made with the thoughts and intentions of a charming person.”

He tried to reach for the wreath, but she ducked out of his grasp. “A very generous evaluation.”

She laughed, and for the first time, there was no bite or irony in it. “Hey, pretty boy, parents proudly wear the wreaths of their kids. They’ll pick ’em over the nice and neat wreaths from their peers.”

An odd image struck Sethis suddenly: King Asher, his father, striding around with a wreck of a wreath stuck on his brow. The thought should have been humorous, but instead, he only felt his eyes misting and his throat growing sore. Esther, his mother, would have. But not his father. Never his father.

Xiph’s face softened. “Hey,” she mumbled. “I didn’t mean—it’s not bad, you know. Everything takes practice, and it’s just nice enough that you made something for me.”

Sethis mastered himself quickly. Now was not the time to bemoan the state of his family. “So long as you enjoy it, that is what matters.”

She blushed as she looked away, which surprised him. The ensuing silence made Sethis keenly aware that they were practically alone; in this entire vast floor reserved for the Warmongers, walls decorated with war horns and vermilion banners, floors gleaming with polished black marble, and bronze braziers roaring with flame, there was no one other than Xiph and himself—and perhaps Lilian in the distant corner. They made for three very small figures in such an enormous space.

Sethis wondered about it briefly. He could hear the chorus of laughter and clinking goblets from the floor above —probably a party thrown by Senator Lukas of the Hedonist’s Dominion—and lulling siren songs and murmurs of lurid poetry from the floor below—probably Senator Irene of the Lover’s Dominion. Clearly they had no qualms about extending their hospitality as much as the venue could bear.

Why, then, was Xiph’s floor so sparse? Was she too miserly to share the excellent view of the mistlore with her people?

Or had no one accepted her invitation?

Waving away the thought, Sethis searched for a more diplomatic question. “Would your guards like to join us?”

Xiph jolted slightly, startled. “Huh?”

Such an honest response. For a political leader, she lacked some of the finer subterfuge displayed by the Airlean aristocracy. Not that Sethis considered that a flaw. There was something reassuring with knowing she could not lie to his face.

“Your guards,” he repeated. At her continued silence, his concern grew. “You…do have guards. Surely you’re not left alone.”

“I already said that I’m not alone. I’m with—”

“I think that we can do away with the games when we are in private, Xiph,” Sethis said quietly.

Her tongue seemed to freeze in her mouth. She stared at him with big, luminous eyes, not unlike a spooked deer. Or a frightened cat.

Had he been too forward? No matter. He felt the walls that Xiph always playfully danced around had fractured for one precious second, and he intended to make use of it.

“At the feast when we spoke, the tour, even now—you are without guard. Why? Are they not concerned for your safety?”

Xiph flinched slightly. “Let’s just say that I know how to take care of myself.”

Sethis regarded her slight build and short height. She had spirit, and no doubt a great measure of skill with her spear, but if he or Halcyon with all their advantageous height and weight were hell-bent on attacking her…

She noticed his skepticism, and her smile turned wry. “Why, pretty boy? Wanna go a bout? See if I’m another damsel in distress for you to save?”

He colored slightly. “I hardly meant to imply that you are weak.”

“You kind of did.”

“I am under permanent guard”—he nodded in Lilian’s direction—“and they call me the Third Hunter, the wielder of Light. There are also two Airlean princes, while it seems you are the only successor of the Warmonger legacy.”

Xiph only shrugged. “If I die, hells, if all the Warmongers die, Atlantis will do just fine. Always has and always will.”

“So it is with me and Airlea.”

“That’s not the way the delegation looks at you, captain.”

“No,” he said with a sudden heat that surprised even him. He faltered when Xiph looked at him, clearly taken aback. “If…if I must be honest, my presence means very little to the country.”

Xiph picked a few grapes from the small table of refreshments between their two chaises. “You sell yourself short.”

“Because you have yet to meet those who truly keep the country running.” Sethis fell silent, pensive. Questions that had always encroached on his periphery now threatened to claw to the forefront.

The six Magistrates and three High Sages of Airlea had been tasked by the crown to tend to the executive and legislative matters of the estate as needed. But with the line of kings weakening, including Sethis’s own father, those civil servants had scrambled to keep the kingdom intact through the chaos of the Storm. Now the system was crumbling under its own weight. With laws vastly outdated and an inability to draft new policies, independent guilds and associations had risen to meet the people’s needs—like the Magitech Guild assembling its own Board of Medical Restoration to license physicians and Board of Ingeniment to formalize a patent system for inventors.

Too many powers were clawing for the highest seat in the kingdom. The magistracies, the aristocracy, the rising common guilds, the stagnant monarchy—and within those four larger parties lay internal allegiances and rivalries, such as the Hunters in conflict with the Royal Guard, or the crown prince at odds with his father.

This was why Sethis had set his sights on Atlantis. Much as he would like to play the altruist, he knew the truth: his intentions were largely selfish. To build stability within the kingdom, he needed a stronger foothold, and for a stronger foothold, he needed a formidable ally.

But now that he had left Airlea, would the warring forces finally see their opportunity and seize power for themselves?

And were they wrong to? Sethis had done little for his people, or they would not be suffering so. Perhaps he deserved to be displaced.

As his thoughts tormented him, Xiph’s keen gaze bore into him like a hawk. A part of him wished to shrink away and reach for his varnished smile, but a larger part wished to lower his guard and share his burdens. He could not explain why, but he was stricken with the keen feeling that she would understand him perfectly.

“I wonder, sometimes, if…” The next words caught in his throat, and he coughed to dislodge them. “…If my people would fare better without me.”

A long moment passed where Xiph said nothing, nor did she move.

“We all wonder that,” she finally said. Her voice was gentle, not in a motherly way, but like candlelight, incandescent. “Anybody who has authority thinks about it. If they don’t, then they’re usually a poor leader.”

He laughed wryly. King Asher had probably never entertained such a thought.

“Rankles you, doesn’t it?” Xiph continued. She wasn’t looking at him anymore; she was looking out into the light of falling dusk on the water, the steady wash from blood orange to light indigo. “To have just enough station to see everything going wrong, but not enough power to do anything. To see the ones who could make a difference just sit and preen in luxury, unwilling to lift a finger.”

The words pierced him like arrows. It was as if she had plucked the thoughts from his head—only, she thought that he was a captain of the guard, truly without sin. That was not quite true. He was the crown prince. Part of the royal family.

“You are the reigning senator of the Warmongers, the most powerful faction,” he said. “But even you face such obstacles?”

“Oh, pretty boy, I can barely lift my little finger without the Senate’s permission.” He caught a rare ribbon of emotion in Xiph’s voice. He could not discern whether it was sorrow or rage. “That’s how our esteemed founders set up the entire system. The power of the Ensigns was too strong, see—with the wave of a hand, each of them could destroy an entire dominion. The only thing that surpassed their own hunger for power was their fear of each other. So they bound the whole Senate in mutual dependency and destruction, and now no one can do anything in this damned country.”

He was surprised at her vitriol. “I thought that the Senate was created from the idea of equality and brotherhood.”

She laughed sharply. “That’s what we like to say, isn’t it? Atlantis, the only kingdom with a dozen equal rulers, all working together in harmony. Sure, we’re all oxen pulling a plowshare, but we’re all going in different directions.”

“Then the plow would go nowhere.”

“Exactly.”

“Is that not why there must be a yoke?” At her incredulous look, he flushed. “Not to say—I did not mean you should fight to subjugate one another!”

“Then what other yoke can there be, captain?”

“Shared purpose. A vision. A common enemy, even.”

Her gaze turned faraway again. In the falling darkness of twilight, he felt that he finally saw her. A small figure swallowed by the gloom of night, set apart from her people, backlit with the sharp lines of an unquenchable loneliness that he recognized all too well.

“A common enemy,” she repeated softly. “Just so.”

Sethis’s heart twisted in his chest, a string plucked before its time. Every word from her lips, so quiet and hollow, dug somewhere between his ribs and lingered.

Outside, the sky suddenly pulsed with life. Water sprayed in a fine, cloudlike mist, falling like a soft sheet. Melancholy lutes and woodwinds warbled out a lush melody. Slowly, lights warmed the mist, cutting through the vapor in colored beams.

The beauty washed over Xiph like rain, making the tips of her vibrant hair glow like dragon violets in the sun.

Ah, Sethis thought vaguely. I see. That feeling between his ribs warmed like coals until it burned with every breath.

He turned away quickly, trying to bury the embers back to where he could not feel them. This was a dangerous time to indulge such fledgling feelings.

Perhaps there would never be a proper time for them at all.

‹ Prev Episode      Next Episode ›